Concluding Thoughts



How can we create a culture of strong character and high-trust?

Organisations are constantly transforming their environments, values, purpose, vision, processes to align with their customers and employees, and to attract and retain new talent these are all important factors to consider. The latest research points to high-trust environments being key to innovation and business owners are starting to understand the value of investing in their company cultures and exploring new models of leadership.

Many organisations are very different and require very different structures to be successful, so change from a top-down model to a flat model, to improve the culture, could be extremely difficult and completely unsuitable for some organisations. To change behaviours and support a culture of collaboration, empathy, trust, reflection, high motivation and strong character, this change has come from the top - the owners/board members, they need to believe in it and fully support a culture transformation in any model.

All companies can invest more time into understanding emotional intelligence by engaging in workshops and suitable practices, creating psychologically safe environments to be our whole selves, and engaging in storytelling and reflection sessions to get to know each other better.

If we can find new ways to collectively measure the value of emotional intelligence, on performance and innovation, then we can better influence business owners to invest in these skills - increasing employee self awareness, empathy, trust, accountability, responsibility and leadership at every level, if there are levels in the company.

I think what also needs more empathic transformation are areas government, education and social/family life. How might we transform education and schooling for the next generation with growing importance of human skills and emotional intelligence on innovation?

The millennials and generation Z are growing up in more diverse culture globally and locally with greater awareness of social responsibility, ethical issues and diversity. They will surely lead the next change in the future empathic organisations that are now still only just forming as start ups.

How can we redefine the role of leadership?

There are a new generation of organisations emerging that are trying out successful new structures and theories of working (eg. Teal, Holacracy). Moving towards a self-leading, self-organising style increasing distributed authority and removing layers and layers of management.

Truth is removing hierarchy will not suit all types of organisations, most are a mix of different world views and organisational paradigms, applying the most appropriate and necessary tools, principles and processes to suit the needs. However new research suggests we need a more human approach, looking into human relations through the lens of psychology and sociology. 'Organisation as Machine' is out of date.

There may be always be a hierarchy of decision making and to ensure quality, but not everywhere needs to be an autocracy. By increasing distributed authority, and removing layers of management, we may increase perceived risk, but we also increase innovation, performance and motivation.

What if we can adapt to be a workforce of self-leading teams, responsive and adaptable, forming natural hierarchies on a project by project basis, introducing new collective ways to measure value, including emotional intelligence, introducing new pricing structures for clients that promote transparency, flexibility, collaboration, multiple job roles, role sharing, and profit sharing.

More and more organisations will soon become decentralised, networked systems of self-leading teams and individuals, a more nuanced approach to a more complex world. Further researching emotional intelligence and its application is key to revolutionising how we work, as artificial intelligence and machine learning take over our factory jobs, we will need a much deeper understanding of what it means to be human.